Warriors advance to Saturday's 2nd round

The Westlake Warriors were in uncharted territory in the boys basketball state tournament Wednesday night, but played like savvy veterans. Westlake outscored Arroyo Grande 38-17 in the 2nd half, and will host La Costa Canyon Saturday night.

Grant Lozoya sees the state playoffs as a second chance for the Westlake High boys basketball team.

Lozoya played like it Wednesday night with 18 first-half points en route to a 26-point performance in a 72-45 win over visiting Arroyo Grande in the first round of the CIF Division II state playoffs.

“It’s a learning situation,” Lozoya said. “I don’t think we came into CIF as focused as we are right now.”

Westlake advances to play La Costa Canyon on Saturday at home at 7 p.m.

The Warriors (27-5), coming off a 68-63 loss to Redondo Union in the CIF-Southern Section Division 2A championship game, appeared out of sync in the opening minutes. Arroyo Grande (22-10) took advantage and sprinted out to a 7-0 lead before Westlake scored its first basket on a Lozoya layup. Lozoya drew the foul and completed the three-point play.

Joshua Brooks made a layup off an alley-oop pass, Lozoya sank a floater in the key and then hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to even the game at 10.

“My shot came back to me a little bit,” he said. “I’ve been working on it a lot. I’ve been coming in late at night and shooting. I think that helped.”

Lozoya completed a fast-break layup as Westlake took a 16-15 lead into the second quarter.

The senior guard continued to score with eight more points in the second quarter.

With 2:37 left in the second quarter and Westlake ahead 29-19, Lozoya picked up his third foul and compounded his mistake by earning a technical foul. The technical also counts as a personal foul, which gave him four before halftime and a seat on the bench.

Arroyo Grande went on a 9-2 spurt to pull within three, 31-28, only to watch Westlake’s Blumhardt sink a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Westlake coach Rob Bloom gave a fiery talk at halftime, emphasizing the need to focus.

“I just didn’t think we were doing little things well,” Bloom said. “We weren’t all connected and so we just talked about that at halftime. We talked about how we were going to wear them down.”

The Warriors took the 34-28 lead into the second half, and with Lozoya on the bench, went on a 12-3 run for a 46-31 advantage.

Westlake pressed Arroyo Grande much of the game and kept the Eagles from finding any cohesiveness on offense.

By the end of the third quarter, Westlake was ahead 53-38 and cruised to the win.